Chirpy high-school Auto-Tune factory Glee has, "thanks" to its trademark Rachel/Finn warble-off Don't Stop Believing, done more for keeping 80s power ballads alive than those petrol station compilation CDs with car-related artwork that come in handy for last-minute dad birthday presents. No doubt Journey are thanking their lucky bank managers that the world's oldest teenagers decided its soaring soft rock could emote a message of love, empowerment and the right to perform Barbra Streisand songs. As series two steps into the limelight, here are the songs it's most likely to take to Believing-style saturation …

Elton John and Kiki Dee's 1976 duet is the strongest candidate for doing a Journey, and not just because it also starts with the word "Don't" and features Finn and Rachel trying to outdo each other in the business of rupturing vocal cord nodules. Such straining does, at least, distract you from the idea of Rachel's "door" "opening" for gormless meat mountain Finn, which nobody really needs to think about. Sorry, everyone.

This 1988 Poison ballad isn't exactly an all-cast, on-stage, twirls-and-all show-stopper in the first episode of series two, but the screen time it does get involves Cupid-faced new jock Sam in the shower, with his top off, crooning. It looks like the hairsprayed axe gods might not have to rely on the televisation of Bret Michaels's love life for their next wave of success.

One-hit wonder Joan Osborne's 1995 one hit is about getting to know the real God, with Osborne worrying whether he's a slob, and who would phone him if he got all lonely. Though it does soundtrack a sad scene for lovely Kurt, it was one of the world's most sickly songs in the first place, and the Glee treatment turns it so sugary it makes candyfloss taste like salt and vinegar crisps.

In 1977 Billy Joel released Only The Good Die Young, a song about how much he wanted to get into the knickers of a good Catholic girl who was more interested in God than his penis. Obviously, it's resident bad boy and virgin-defiler Puck who gets to take this for a jaunty spin.

The surprising Clarkson-friendliness of this series continues with its revival of the 1989 soft-focus Mike & The Mechanics ballad. The Glee cast will have to fight the Friday night karaoke men, who aren't crying, they've just got something in their eye, all right?

Paramore shook up their pop-metal repertoire last year with The Only Exception, a blubbery ballad about wuv. Glee is about to use it during a rare un-Britney moment in the forthcoming Britney Spears ep Brittany/Britney. Sadly for lovers of homophones, said episode is not set in a north-western region of France.